Manuel here catching you up on the latest #HTGAWM episode so Nathaniel doesn’t have to.
This is it, everyone. We’re one episode away from knowing #WhoKiledSam (or, an episode away from ABC having to figure out what else to hashtag during the show, at least). Thus, much of “He Has A Wife” felt like watching a rather amateur chess game setting its pieces in place for the eventual check mate as our two timelines finally collided.
DO NOT LEAVE!”
Annalise may be talking to Bonnie, but I can’t be the only one who week in and week out wants to sneak out the door but is unable to do so precisely because of Viola. Yes, her Annalise pushes incredulity (why go to such great lengths to cover up her husband? I’m hoping she pulls a Patty Hewes and we find she’s been master-minding the entire show all along) but she’s endlessly watchable and every episode has a number of moments that show why this is one of the buzziest shows of the fall.
Frank’s Call
My how Buffy’s Ben has grown up! This is what screen-grabbing was invented for, right? We knew a twist was coming in the Laurel/Frank tryst and a long distance girlfriend seemed as plausible as anything else our show has thrown at us (“And you must be… this month’s student” is equally laced with scorn and pity).
“He lied to you. Betrayed you. Took advantage of your loyalty and trust. And that’s unforgivable. You’ll thank me one day”
This is Annalise talking to her client-of-the-week, a sleepwalking woman who was (spoiler!) drugged and framed by her husband for the murder of their nanny who was sleeping with both her husband and her son. Could her speech be more on-the-nose? She’s talking about herself. Get it? It really is a testament to Viola’s commitment to this role and the show as a whole that her Annalise manages to have some degree of gravitas amidst the sudsy plots and paint-brush subtext strokes that so surround her.
“You sign or I will make sure you go back to that nasty bayou swamp you came from you stubborn bitch!”
When the show throws itself onto its heightened reality, we get delicious scenes like these that bring together issues of class, race, gender and family that it so earnestly seems interested in. Of course, that line and its subsequent foiled slap! really hit their stride because of Aja Naomi King and Lynn Whitfield (wonderfully credited as “Momma Pearl”) whose crackling chemistry finally make Michaela feel less like a smug if resourceful gay-panicked wedding-obsessed focused law student.
Whatever this was
Ah, “so this is how Michaela got a hold of the statue” is what we were all supposed to be thinking. Instead, I found myself ruing the day she even rang the door and didn’t let us enjoy more of Asher’s mirror dancing.
“You’re fired”
Liza Weil and Viola Davis, man. This was some next-level soap-opera antics but it also somehow took me back to 1940s weepies; is this perhaps because Viola’s crying always demands a larger screen?
And so all of our characters have all been skillfully moved into our bonfire/murder scenario with Rebecca about to break into the Keating house to snoop on Sam’s computer (at Nate’s behest) with Wes, Connor and Laurel on their way leaving us with a number of questions: Where does Annalise go that she misses the bloodshed? How does the murder weapon make it to the house? And more importantly, who killed Sam?
My theory? Next week’s ep looks like a home invasion flick and so we’re probably headed for a Rebecca “self-defense” murder scenario but there are too many pieces at play for it to be that simple, right? Might we hope for a Murder on the Orient Express style reveal where all Keating 5 kids at the house share bludgeoning duties as they save seemingly innocent Rebecca from Big Bad Sam only to realize not everything was as it seemed? I mean, there’ll be a mid-season cliffhanger, no? One. That. Changes. Everything. Law of soapy procedurals dictate it, so indulge in hatching up conspiracy theories! Who do you think killed Sam? Was it Rebecca in the living room with the statue?
What’s that? I forgot to mention the fact that this episode was centered on Lyla? Yea, like I’d spend time rehashing that paper-thin “I thought he was gonna leave his wife!” characterization.